Lussekatter — Swedish Saffron Buns

Lussekatter Video Demo (Scroll down for recipe)

Part nine in my Christmas Around the World series! Christmas in Sweden, focus on: LUSSEKATTER! Thank you to Helen for explaining the origin of these buns. And thank you to Sophie for emailing with me about Swedish Christmas traditions!

Lussekatter, or St. Lucy’s Cats, are a sweet saffron bread from Sweden. Saffransbullar they are called, when not formed into the tight figure 8, reminiscent of a kittycat tail, I suppose. The legend is a little distorted; originally they were called “Devil’s Cats” because it was told that the Devil would arrive in the form of a cat to punish bad children, while a “Christ-like child” would show up with treats for the good kids. St. Lucy (or Lucia in Italy) came to represent the good and the light (as opposed to the dark and the evil of Satan) and saffron was used to keep the Devil at bay because of its brilliant yellow color that is bright like the sun — and the Devil hates sunlight, right? Over hundreds of years, Lussekatter came to replace the name Dövelskatter (Devil’s cats) though in some parts of Sweden the old name is still used for these buns.

Helen actually explained it better, thusly, “One legend says that the Devil in the shape of a cat used to beat naughty children up, while Jesus Christ in the shape of a child handed out buns or bread flavoured with saffron to kind and well brought up children. This was done to keep the fishy Devil away. To make the bread lighter in colour and more “sun-like” the yellow spice of saffron was added.”

Comments

I’d never known of the connection between lussekatter and Saint Lucia. I’ve had a long, long interest in Lucia Joyce who was named for St. Lucia by her father, James, probably because she was also the patron saint of eyesight. I’ll be making this recipe, hopefully really soon, for my Millennium Trilogy movie marathon, but also when I celebrate Lucia Joyce’s birthday on July 26.

Unfortunately, that Wikipedia article has several factual errors in it and only hints at the real tragedy (and talent) of Lucia Joyce. Her nephew, Stephen, seems to be hellbent on destroying any documentation of her life, so we will never be absolutely certain of what exactly happened. But there is one thing that is certain: she was a great modern dancer: in an international modern dance competition held in Paris, she was one of the final six. Jean Renoir hired her to dance in one of his first films. The mermaid costume she’s wearing in the Wikipedia picture is one she designed and made herself. She also may have been a great novelist (it’s certain she wrote at least one, but it’s been destroyed). She had so much talent as a graphic artist that her father pushed her to give up dance and take up book illustration. That she had mental problems, there’s no doubt, but that diagnosis of being schizophrenic is just one from over two dozen doctors (Carl Jung was one) that James Joyce hired to analyze Lucia. There was absolutely nothing coming close to being a consensus as to what her mental issues might be. Judging from the testimony of her real friends, she was not insane, schizophrenic or any of the other depictions of her as being mad. She probably suffered from emotional trauma (perhaps caused by having an intense desire to have a creative life when women still weren’t supposed to aspire to anything more than marriage and motherhood) and an Electra complex, but she also, most certainly, should not have been incarcerated. Unfortunately, her enemies (chiefly her mother and her brother) wanted her out of the way because her emotional issues were distracting James Joyce and keeping him from finishing Finnegan’s Wake.

Hi Hilah;
This place is just to find somewhere to mail you from. First item in the menu system.

Is the iTunes link broken?
The last Podcast I have from you is “Homemade Apple Pie” at the beginning of December and I was getting withdrawal systoms so came to this Web-Site for news. (I hate the web and avoid it whenever possible).
I see you have lots of recipes on your web site since early December and could not see an iTunes icon so I am wondering if you have stopped that – there is no error message in iTunes btw.

Actually zaferon comes from Persia(Iran) which has the best kind of zaferon in the whole world and the city that has the best kind of Zaferon,is called Mashhad,and Moroko they don,t use zaferon ,they use color which they think is zaferon and is very cheap,and you know zaferon is more expensieve than gold,and dear one more thing you have to grind zaferon ,then you have more color and aroma.

Hi, I’m Hilah!

I create short-form, educational, and occasionally hilarious cooking videos geared towards beginner and intermediate cooks, as well as people who are just looking for simple, low-cost recipes. Everything is made from scratch, people! Read More…